By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
There was a time back in the 1980s when the soccer matchup between Porter and Hanna was commonly known as “El Clasico” because the Cowboys and Golden Eagles annually were considered the top two teams in the Rio Grande Valley.
Actually, those times aren’t too far removed from the present days of UIL soccer in South Texas.
Porter and Hanna added another chapter to their “El Clasico” rivalry Tuesday at Hanna as the Cowboys, ranked No. 2 in the Valley by RGVSports.com, came away with a 3-0 non-district win against No. 1 Hanna.
All three of Porter’s goals came during the second half. The Cowboys just seemed to have a little bit more on the offensive end than the Eagles, and Porter’s defense stood up to every challenge as well.
“Hanna vs. Porter is always a classic game, and we knew it was going to be a tough one this time,” said Uriel Sepulveda, a senior midfielder and captain for the Cowboys. “We had a tough weekend at Houston (in a tournament there). We had a lot of injuries, but we came here with what we had tonight.
“It’s a great feeling,” he added. “Winning against Hanna at their home is not easy, but we never lost focus and kept doing what we know to do (to win).”
The Cowboys went ahead 1-0 during the 58th minute when the ball was moved around on a couple of rapid passes between teammates Anthony Cuellar, Ricky Vidal and Enrique Soto, whose shot from 20 yards found the net. On a pass from Cuellar, Vidal received the ball about 10 yards away from the goal, and he quickly diverted it back to Soto, who did the rest.
It became 2-0 during the 70th minute when Omar Estrada received a centering pass from the left side by Alexis Armendariz and scored from close range.
With three minutes remaining, Alexis Anzures completed the tally by blasting in a shot from 35 yards to make it 3-0.
“This was like the ‘Clasicos’ of the 1980s (all over again with Hanna No. 1 and Porter No. 2), right?” Cowboys coach Jose Espitia said. “We had heard so many good things about Hanna. We had heard that they were like the strongest team in the Valley and the favorite to take the District 32-6A crown, so we took it as a test. We knew it would be a good challenge.
“We told our guys it was going to be a ‘Clasico,’” Espitia added. “A number of our players — six of them — were freshmen and they remember when we played here at Hanna in 2013, the year Hanna had such a great team and went to the state final, almost winning it all. That year we gave Hanna a very good game and we lost on what we thought was kind of a questionable goal.
“Now Hanna has another very good team. We just came out (motivated) tonight to play a ‘Clasico.’ It’s a game where it doesn’t matter who’s on the field. We even sent out an alternate starting lineup because we wanted all the players to experience what it’s like to play in a game like this one before District (32-5A) begins for us. We were subbing and trying to split the time so all our guys could play and experience it.”
Up next, each team will be playing at the Brownsville ISD Tournament beginning Thursday at Brownsville Sports Park.
In fact, there could even be a rematch between the Eagles and Cowboys on Thursday. If each team wins its opening game in the tournament, they’ll face each other for the second time in three days in the second round later in the day.